<nettime> Contentville.com copyright followup

["Geneva J. Anderson" <geneva@iscweb.com>]

The National Writers Union yesterday submitted a letter of complaint to
Contentville.com on behalf of its writers. Below is a copy of the letter.

More information can be found at www.nwu.org.
NWU has NOT yet gotten on board with an e-petition/letter on this topic.


geneva anderson
---------------------------------------------------------------

Steve Brill, President
Contentville.com
1230 Avenue of the Americas
16th Floor
New York, New York

July 17, 2000

Dear Mr. Brill:

I am writing to you on behalf of National Writers Union members who have
contacted us regarding what could be serious copyright infringement by
Contentville.com.

Contentville.com's copyright policy states that "Except for materials in
the public domain, all of the content of Contentville.com is the  property
of Contentville.com or its content suppliers and is protected by copyright
laws." Contentville.com claims that it "will block access to and/or  remove
any material that it believes in good faith to be copyrighted." Yet several
NWU members who retain copyright to their work have reported to  us that
Contentville.com is using their work without permission. At least  one of
our members has contacted you directly and alerted you to this fact;  to
date, she has not received any response and her work has not been  removed
from your site.

As you probably know, under Tasini v. New York Times, a creator's work
cannot be used in another medium (i.e., electronically or on a database)
without that creator?s permission. We would prefer to resolve this  matter
without relying on legal action. Indeed, the Union has a solution that
allows publishers and aggregators to use authors? work legally: the
Publishing Rights ClearingHouse (PRC). Similar to ASCAP and BMI which
ensure songwriters get royalties, the PRC obtains permission from  writers
to license their content and then makes payment to them when their work is
sold.

To make use of the PRC, Contentville.com would simply enter into a
collective licensing agreement with the Clearinghouse, negotiate a royalty
split, send us a check on a quarterly basis, and we would then distribute
payment to the writers.

The National Writers Union represents more than six thousand members.

Of these, there could literally be thousands whose work is being used
illegally at your website, not to mention thousands of other writers. I
very much hope that we can talk soon and work out an agreement whereby
Contentville.com will be protected from liability and writers will be
fairly compensated for their work.

Please feel free to contact me or Dian Killian, the Journalism Division
Organizer, to discuss this matter further.

Sincerely yours,

Jonathan Tasini
President,
National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981)

cc.: Catherine Seda
       Copyright Agent of Contentville.com

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